Taxi Driver Online

Cabbies wage war on late buses with £1 fare promotion

TAXI drivers angry at new late-night bus services are planning to try to steal back business by offering rides into Derby for £1. Derby Area Taxi Operators Association says more than 300 Hackney drivers will start picking up people waiting at bus stops and taking them into the city at the knock-down price.

Javed Khan, spokesman for the association, said drivers felt compelled to act because late-night bus services offered by Trent Barton were damaging trade. "Now Arriva plan to start doing late-night services too we thought we had to act," he said.

"It is going to hurt our trade. This is war between the taxi drivers and the buses. They are taking our trade at night, so we plan to take theirs in the day." The cut-price taxi rides will start on Monday and will run from 8am to 8pm every day.

Drivers taking part will have a green poster displayed in their windscreen carrying the slogan "Town for £1". The city council said that in order to carry out the promotion, 10% of the city's drivers had to request permission.

Mr Khan said he planned to take a petition of 300 names to the authority. Abdul Rashid, of Chellaston, who has been a driver in the city for 25 years, is taking part. He said: "The taxi trade is really struggling with the price of fuel and now this. They are taking our trade.

"If I am going back into town I might as well pick a few people up for a £1 rather than drive empty. "At the weekends we used to get loads of out-of-town journeys to places like Ilkeston, Melbourne, Ripley and Heanor. We hardly get any now."

Trent Barton already runs late-night services to Nottingham, Burton, Heatherton Village, Spondon and Mickleover on Fridays and Saturdays. A spokesman said: "We have never known of anything like this in 10 years of operating late-night buses."

And from October 26, fellow operator Arriva plans to introduce four late-night weekend buses as part of a multi-million-pound revamp of its services. These include services from Victoria Street in the city to Oakwood, Sinfin, Alvaston, Allenton, Chellaston and Shelton Lock until 3am.

Keith Myatt, communications manager for Arriva, said the changes were to be introduced after consultation with council, businesses in the city and passengers.

He said: "As part of these exciting major changes we will be introducing four new late-night services to ensure that visitors to pubs and clubs are able to travel home on a regular local bus service."

A spokeswoman for the council, which issues licences to the city's 379 Hackney cars, said in order to offer a price promotion, 10% of the city's drivers needed to write to the authority to request permission.

She said: "This is a condition of their licence to which they all signed up. We have not received any letters so we will be writing to the organisers to make them aware of this."

_________________
IDFIMH

Well let's all play a game of making it up as we go along.

_________________
IDFIMH

PMSL

CC

_________________
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

How about the traffic commisioners office? Don't they have to register a new service?

_________________
Grandad,

No, They have been doing it in Newcastle for nearly 2 years £1.00 a head into town

Wolverhampton did this about 10 years ago.

After they dropped off in the outskirts they would pick up at 50p a passenger going back in.

I'd like to know the law on this, & I know some of it is in the Transport Act 1985, but the only bit I know is Section 16, just like most cabbies.

_________________
Kind regards,

Brummie Cabbie.

Type a message, post your news,
Disagree with other members' views;
But please, do have some decorum,
When debating on the TDO Forum.

Let's face it, the more people you can get into town on a Friday & Saturday night, the more have to get back home at the end of the night, when the taximeter is on night rate.

There's method in the madness you know!!

_________________
Kind regards,

Brummie Cabbie.

Type a message, post your news,
Disagree with other members' views;
But please, do have some decorum,
When debating on the TDO Forum.

If they are on about taxisharing the procedure is set out in the 1985 transport act.

CC

_________________
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Only a shot and not being a killjoy, I am sure that I read somewhere that it is illegal to actually pick up at bus stops - am I wrong?

_________________
if you cannot be yourself, then who can you be.

The law is quite clear.

Regards

JD

_________________
Copyright notice © The contents of this post are copyright of JD and are not to be reproduced outside of TDO without written permission.

I am on about the buses Skippy, Bus companys have to register their routes with the traffic commisioner. They can't just start up a service without registering and they can't stop a service without notice.

_________________
Grandad,

The law may well be quite clear, but please tell what it is, bacause it's so long ago since I read it, that I can't remember.

And also I'm a lazy a*se, & can't be bothered to look it up this evening after being in a licensing meeting today for nearly 7 hours.

_________________
Kind regards,

Brummie Cabbie.

Type a message, post your news,
Disagree with other members' views;
But please, do have some decorum,
When debating on the TDO Forum.

Drivers can charge what little they like, but, unless they are registered to run taxi bus, they can't tout at a bus stop.

That said I wonder how much of their 50p a run work is infact the £7-10 a run work that have just walked to a bus stop rather than ring for a cab?

_________________
IDFIMH

Looks like it's going to start soon.

http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/news/ ... ticle.html

_________________
IDFIMH

Arriva are a big company they could afford to drop their fares to 10p for a few months if they needed to to win the price war i hope that the cabbies know what they are doing ?

A few years ago arriva drove a lot of their competition out of business in leicester by doing cheap fares and then when they had cornered the market up they went